Is it better playing solo than team?

[Chief]

I know thats not the objective of the game but given last chance and solo fighter pictos, they give really good stats just to run a 1 person team. In a perfect world where you can parry and dodge everything consistently, is it actually better to run solo than running a full team?

[Jan]

Not really, maybe later. But you start to hit the damage cap pretty early. What you need is a high number of attacks.

[Ratsplat]

If you can build it, why not.

[eRe4s3r]

Solo can make some fights substantially easier as you get in the rhythm better indeed. And I Swear going in Solo makes some fights easier (like the Clea fight) felt like she only had a third of the HP.... no idea if that was real but it felt like it

[Bran]

depends, for what you wanna fight but the most important part is how much fun you have playing that way

[Eeko_San]

Before having a 5th character, i use to play the 03 girls on my first team and verso on lone wolf mode. It was very good since the girls made the most of damage and verso was in backup to clean everything up if needed.....

[eeeechuta]

i thought solo was way more effective than team, especially if you don't want to farm stuff. but certainly the fights are more interesting in a team,.

[Leopanther]

Yeah, there's very strong effects for a solo fighter. The somewhat known cheese build that oneshots bosses with millions of damage makes use of this (paired with a 2nd char that has auto death + some extra on death effects).

So it's totally possible to have a potent solo char playthrough if you enjoy that. Though for some enemies it may not work (like the Bourgeans that suck up a partymember) unless you're oneshotting them.

As a team your damage per member is lower and it's an overall more balanced experience. Also more forgiving since you have 3 HP bars instead of one, so aside from aoes you can take more hits before wiping. And reviving each other can prolong fights too, you get quite a lot of revive tints throughout the game.

[Haruspex]

The game encourages said build by giving every solo buff you could possibly ever imagine in act 1 so why not.

[Leopanther]

You can also use both once you have more than 3 party members. Since expedition last stand sends in the 'leftover' party if your main party dies.

So can run a main party of 3 with a backup solo build if they die (+ an autodeath partner if you got 5 members, or just let the 5th die as soon as possible). Or the other way around, have your solo fighter as the main party and still have the full party as backup if the solo dies.

Though not sure if you can control which 3 it sends in after a solo char dies, if you got 5 total. Never tried it like that.

[C1REX]

Originally posted by Chief:

I know thats not the objective of the game but given last chance and solo fighter pictos, they give really good stats just to run a 1 person team. In a perfect world where you can parry and dodge everything consistently, is it actually better to run solo than running a full team?

In a perfect world it doesn't matter. But yes. You have pictos that make your single character stronger + other that will buff you if auto kill other members. But you lose access to 12 more skills from two other characters. And in less perfect world you can't use other characters to heal and buff you.

[Veylox]

It's good during act 1, because you have 4 playable characters, that's a team of 3 and a team of 1, you can put all your solo pictos on team B and have an absolute beast of a clean-up.

I don't think you can pull that off later on though, at least I didn't find a way to remove characters from the B team

It's probably not better to run a solo team anyway, the existence of revive items alone makes it less viable. You can infinitely tank single target hits as long as you have revive items on a 3-man team, but it's instant death in solo.

It's a nice challenge though, and it's nice that the game goes out of its way to give tools to people who are gonna go for solo no-hit runs and the likes

[Phishfood]

I used Maelle solo for a good portion of the early game, she was 1-shotting everything and making bosses very easy. However as you increase in level and weapon level the other members of your party will also be able to hit 9999 but also hit multiple times, whereas Maelle can only hit once.

So I think it was around level 25-30 that I switched off using solo Maelle.

[ACEsino]

I dont think the bonuses are big enough to make them better than a full team whit synergies and later pictos

[Tiasmoon]

Originally posted by Phishfood:

I used Maelle solo for a good portion of the early game, she was 1-shotting everything and making bosses very easy. However as you increase in level and weapon level the other members of your party will also be able to hit 9999 but also hit multiple times, whereas Maelle can only hit once.

So I think it was around level 25-30 that I switched off using solo Maelle.

Maelle has a few skills that hit multiple times. Including one 5-hit move. I also stopped using her for the mid game but it was mainly because I used her too much solo already, and because her kit is too much orientated around solo-play and I wanted to play more party again.

Her Virtuoso stance can be a pain to manage esp since her big moves are very expensive on the AP and you have to reapply it. That's not an issue in solo play with all the AP from parrying, or even reapplying Virtuoso on counter if you use one of the weapons, but without that she is imo a bit annoying to play. (untill much later in the game)

[Ani]

I'm running Sciel in Act 2 atm with all the bonus pictos for a solo character along side one that gives 3 shield on start of combat which allows me to survive any attack 3 times and deal some crazy damage.
I'm pumping bosses for 41k each turn and one shotting every mob with an aoe which is far above what my 3 man squad could do. I think its almost better to run solo once you get the setup, at least for bossing 100%